Sydney Edwards's List: Advanced Composition

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  This is the government that future politicians will look back on for the examples of what, "Not to do ".  The creative prowess to continually come up with taxes to cover their own fiscal and political incompetence without any accountability is beyond comprehension. The collective tax revenue being generated will not end up being used for Eco / Green or any other program. Nor will this labour collective of remedial political refugees be giving any degree of transparency

• Mal - from WA,  1 year 

    

  I think it is the wrong time for any Carbon Tax .Let's wait until most other Countries want it and are prepared to have a uniform rate . Probably about 5 or 6% It is Silly to put our Workers out of Work while other Countries pick up the extra Work and do nothing about Carbon. Seriously it will probably take another 40 or 50 Years before any real action will be taken.

• Mike - from Mitcham SA,  1 year 

    

  The loud protesters in Parliament today don't seem to have had time to read the news. Scientists at the University of Bremen reported that area covered by ice in the Arctic has shrunk to smallest size ever recorded. Human activities *are* changing the climate. The evidence and the science clearly support this conclusion. Australia has an opportunity to act to slow climate change with the carbon tax. I'm a strong supporter of the Government's carbon tax initiative.

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• • CORALS
• An estimated 20 percent of the world’s reefs are damaged beyond recovery and  about half of the remaining coral reefs are under risk of collapse
• NOAA is working to conserve coral reefs around the world.
• NOAA conducts research, coral mapping and monitoring activities, and uses a  variety of coral conservation tools
• Awareness is a big step towards changing behaviors that threaten reefs, and  ensuring your impact on reefs is a positive one

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• • Needs to be cited

• Pieces of calcium carbonate tend to float freely in the sea, as charged  molecules called carbonate ions. But when carbon dioxide dissolves into the sea,  it starts a chemical reaction. The carbon dioxide and water molecules combine  with calcium carbonate molecules, producing molecules called bicarbonates.
• These animals can't build shells from bicarbonates. And the chemical reaction  takes apart the calcium carbonate molecules the animals could have used. At the  same time, greater amounts of carbon dioxide cause reactions that turn more and  more carbonates into bicarbonates.
• Even though bicarbonate sounds like carbonate, it's useless to animals like sea  butterflies.

• Without carbonates, snails can't build their shells.  Without shells, bye bye snails. Carbon dioxide not only makes the oceans more  acidic, it also reduces the supply of carbonates.
• Tiny shelled creatures such as sea butterflies are at the bottom of the food  chain, which means other animals eat these creatures to live. Those animals, in  turn, provide food for other animals, which means the sea butterfly's carbonate  problems could potentially affect the lives of much larger animals.
• "What happens as you go to lower and lower carbonate ion concentrations? Do  they die out or do they change?"
• 25 percent of all life in the ocean depends on coral reefs.
• the carbonate shortage that comes with ocean  acidification means trouble for coral reefs
• In 2007, researchers grew two types of coral in acidified water and saw,  firsthand, what could happen to coral in the future. After 12 months, the coral  skeletons had completely dissolved in the modified water.
• This experiment shows that acidic water hurts coral reefs, but that coral might  survive and regrow if conditions improve.

• For coral, more carbon dioxide delivers a double whammy:  Warmer temperatures cause disease, and ocean  acidification hurts coral skeletons. In addition, more carbon  dioxide means fewer carbonates ? which means coral will have trouble building  skeletons.
• The disappearance of coral reefs wouldn't just lead to the disappearance of many  fish. It would change the way of life for people around the world.
• Neill points out, however, that ocean  acidification can be reversed. The reactions that connect  carbon dioxide to a reduction in carbonates can be stopped. If less carbon  dioxide makes it into the water, the ocean will stop becoming  more acidic, and calcium carbonate will be left available to the organisms that  use it to build shells.
• The IPCC says that to avoid major destruction to the world's oceans, by 2050  people must cut carbon dioxide emissions in half. (The IPCC is the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was established by the United  Nations and pulls together the latest science to try and determine how climate  change may affect us).

• calcification To become harder by  either using or turning into calcium carbonate. Marine animals like sea  butterflies and coral use calcification to build shells and  outer skeletons.

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• (1) decreased carbonate ion concentration could affect the calcification  process for calcifying organisms (e.g., corals);
• (3) increased dissolved CO₂ could alter the ability of primary  producers to photo-synthesize.
• calcification effects
• Many organisms use calcium and carbonate ions from seawater to produce calcium  carbonate (figure 1), a compound used for skeletal support (e.g., corals) and  protection (e.g., snail shells).
• Aragonite calcifiers (e.g., stony corals and shelled pteropods) and  high-magnesium calcite calcifiers (e.g., coralline algae and sea urchins) are  likely to be affected by ocean acidification more strongly than  calcite calcifiers (e.g., foraminifera and coccolithophores). This distinction  is because of differences in the solubility of mineral forms; for example,  aragonite is approximately 50% more soluble than calcite (Doney et al. 2009).

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  Figure  2. Bjerrum plot.
• When the saturation state is equal to 1 (Ω = 1), there is an equal chance of  dissolution or formation of calcium carbonate. This chemical threshold defines a  two-dimensional surface in the ocean interior called the  saturation horizon. When saturation is greater than 1 (Ω > 1), formation of  calcium carbonate is favored; when saturation is less than 1 (Ω < 1),  dissolution is favored.
• However, ocean acidification is decreasing the concentration of  carbonate ions and therefore decreasing the saturation state of calcium  carbonate, thus bringing the saturation horizon closer to the surface (Raven et  al. 2005).
• Under laboratory conditions, several calcifying organisms, including abundant  planktonic species (e.g., coccolithophores, pteropods,  foraminifera) and benthic invertebrates (e.g., coral, calcifying algae,  molluscs, echinoderms), have shown a reduction in calcification rates as a  result of reduced carbonate ion concentration (Raven et al. 2005, Fabry et al.  2008, Guinotte and Fabry 2008).

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• • nullGood to know what the problem is. -- 2012-11-09
    Long, detailed, someone in the field -- 2012-11-09
    
• Since the start of the industrial revolution, enough fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—have been burned and enough forests cut down to emit more than 500 billion tons of CO₂. As is well known, the atmosphere has a higher concentration of CO₂ today than at any point in the past 800,000 years and probably a lot longer

• fossil fuel-powered machines have driven an unprecedented burst of human industry and advancement. The unfortunate consequence, however, has been the emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into Earth's
• atmosphere
• Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.
  
• The oceans currently absorb about a third of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day
• . Projections based on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued emissions could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5 units
• control and eventually eliminate our fossil fuel emissions

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